Picturing Science

“Although science is seemingly the logical, rational, ordered antithesis of artistic creativity, artists and scientists still share a common drive to innovate, explore, dissect and reveal,” says curator Mark De Novellis. The exhibition draws on the sciences from biology to astrophysics to explore these common themes.

New Scientist takes a look at some highlights.

When the Levee Breaks

Alex Baker, artist in residence at the Riverside Gallery in Richmond, paints with sound. By covering rubber speakers in ink, Baker collects the patterns kicked up by the vibrations sounds make on sheets of paper.

This is the pattern for Led Zeppelin's version of When the Levee Breaks, a blues song Baker played 36 times to get the ink consistency right.

Baker's work is funded by the Institute of Physics Public Engagement grant and based on acoustics research done at the National Physical Laboratory.

(Image: Alex Baker)

Disturbulences

Devon-based artist Pery Burge places inks and paint in water to create swirling vortices of colour which she calls acquascapes.

Burge's work has featured New Scientist before: her video From so simple a beginning was one of five winners in the 2009 Sampling Darwin competition.

(Image: Pery Burge, 2010)

CH2CHCO2H

The chemical formula of this work's title is acrylic acid (prop-2-enoic acid), a component of the paint used to make it.

Sally Hewett applied acrylic paint and varnish to MDF and allowed them to form their own image by splitting, attracting and solidifying as they reacted to the wet surface.

(Image: Sally Hewett)

Waxlight

Stan A. Lenartowicz plays with seasonally changing patterns of light on his engravings of hexagonal pattern of beehives.

(Image: Stan A. Lenartowicz)

Charged Vessels & Infinite Bodies: Electric Egg I

An electrostatic generator, a spiral galaxy and spider's web come together to form a fantastical world in this photographic print by Tracey Holland.